Category Archives: Fun stuff for parents

Disney Mobile Phones and Service

Age 5-7, Age 7-10, Ages 10-13, Electronics, Fun stuff for parents, , , , , ,

UPDATE —

Disney Mobile will discontinue its service December 31st, 2007.  Verizon Wireless has an exclusive offer for Disney Mobile customers. The offer will give Disney Mobile customers three free months of Verizon Wireless Chaperon Service. (this is not guaranteed as information may be incorrect or out-dated). I received a letter in the mail from Disney Mobile & Verizon stating that when you sign-up your family you can get up to five phones free!

The offer is available to Disney Mobile customers only and can be accessed here: www.verizonwireless.com/disneymobile.

———————————

I am so excited to introduce you to Disney Mobile phones and service!

Sebastian is at the age when he likes to go to his friends house after school, but he doesn’t want me
to go inside to talk to the parents anymore. I guess he’s embarrased of his mom!?  How can that be? I am really bad about keeping up with his friends parents names and phone numbers so having his own Disney Mobile phone has been wonderful. Instead of having to search through the desk drawers for the little piece of paper that has his friends moms name on it, I can call him and tell him it’s time to come home.  I think it is always more effective when kids hear the bad news from their own parents and not their friends parents.

Sebastian, myself and my husband have been using our Disney Mobile phones for a few months now. There are a lot of great features. I can’t imagine going back to my regular cell service after using the Disney Mobile phones and service.  The phones are easy to use, nice looking, and best of all, can provide vital information when needed.

I was impressed from the minute I turned on my Disney Mobile phone. When I turned my phone on, a really neat Disney tune played and the animation on the screen was amazing.

The functions are very easy to access and use.. even for Sebastian who is 7 years old.

Sebastian’s favorite feature is the Family Alert feature. With Family Alert, he can send me ‘template messages’ such as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (and many more) or he can type a message. First he chooses a recipient. Then he can either choose a ‘template message’ or type his own message.  The next screen allows him to check his message and then send it.  He thinks it really fun to send me Family Alerts while we are at home. 

Likewise, parents can send a Family Alert to their child’s phone. The child is alerted with a sound and when he or she opens the phone, the screen lets them know that they have a Family Alert waiting for them. Your kids can no longer use the "I did’t get your message" excuse because the Family Alert message will be the first thing they see on their screen.


One of my favorite features is the Family Locator. With this feature, I can locate Sebastian where ever he is as long as his phone is on. When I first tested the Family Locator feature, I had Sebastian’s phone on the desk next to me. If the phone could talk, it would have told me I was crazy!  The message that appeared on my screen was "Sebastian is within 10 yards of your phone"!  I couldn’t believe it pinpointed the location so perfectly. The Family Locator also gave me the address. If your child has a few friends on your street that he plays with, you can find out who’s house he is at with the Family Locator. If you have a pre-teen who is supposed to be at the mall but you think she walked to the movie theatre, you can find out with the Family Locator!

I am impressed with the durability of the phones.   Sebastian’s Disney Mobile phone has been through a lot… even the washing machine (sorry Disney!). We simply laid the phone out to dry and now it is as good as new.

Another great feature is Call Control. With Call Control, parents can limit their child’s phone usage by the time of day, and by days of the week. This is great for kids who take their phones to school. You can use Call Control to make sure that they don’t use their phone during school hours.  The really neat thing about the Call Control feature is that your child’s phone can have ‘always allowed’ numbers that he can call even during hours that you have restricted which is great for emergencies. Your child can call you, but not their friends.

Ok, you are going to LOVE this feature. Family Monitor. The Family Monitor feature allows parents to set monthly spending allowances for calls, text messages, and downloads.  When your child has reached his spending limit, both your child and you are notified.

Other FUN features include:

  • Awesome ringtones. Ringtones include "Bare Necessities", "Electro", "Granted Wish" and a classic telephone ringtone.
  • Camera
  • Voice recorder
  • Notepad
  • Alarm clock
  • Scheduler
  • Themes – Give your Disney Mobile phone a new theme.  Themes include Floral Fantasy, Mickey and Friends,  eXtreMe and more.
  • Radio Disney.. yes, that’s right!  Just click on Radio Disney and your child can vote for their favorite Radio Disney song, send a shout out, find your local Radio Disney station, and keep up with the top 30 Radio Disney songs
  • Ringtones – additional ringtones can be purchased and downloaded right from your phone.  There are several categories to browse include Disney Favorites, pop, top downloads, and hip hop. Parents will appreciate the ‘super star’ ringtones which include songs by Gwen Stefani songs, The Killers, and The Fray.
  • Images – download additional images to your Disney Phone. Images can be used as your phone background or can be sent to a friends phone. Images include "Flaming Heart Tattoo", "Tinker Bell Name", "Thumper Peeved" and many more.
  • Web – access popular websites such as ABC News, USA Today, AccuWeather, ESPN, horoscopes and many more.

Way to go Disney Mobile!  ‘The Mommy Insider’ gives Disney Mobile two thumbs up for great phones, excellent mobile service, and wonderful customer service!

There are too many features to mention so go on over to Disney Mobile and take a look at all of the great features today!

So Easy Baby Food Kit

Feeding - baby & kids, Fun stuff for parents, Store Reviews, , ,

You won’t believe what I did this weekend!  I made baby food!!

I always thought it would be such a hassle to make baby food, but I was totally wrong. With Fresh Baby’s So Easy Baby Food Kit, it was a breeze, really.
The kit comes with a DVD which I watched first. The DVD shows you how to make a couple of different foods from start to finish so I went into the situation feeling comfortable.
The kit also comes with what is called a cworkbook (cookbook and workbook). The cworkbook explains when to start introducing certain foods, the nutrients in foods, how much of each food to buy for a recipe and more. The recipes are amazingly simple and easy to follow.

So, I went to Whole Foods bought some sweet potato’s and got to it!
The prep time was about 10 minutes. I cleaned and cut the sweet potato’s into small squares, added a little water, microwaved them for 10 minutes, then pureed them until they reached a good consitancy for Madelyn. You add water as you feel necessary. Each recipe comes with ‘extras’ such as cinamon that you can add at the appropriate age range which is listed next to the ‘extra’.
After I pureed the sweet potato’s I used a spoon to scoop them into the 2 freezer trays that came in the kit. Then I put the trays in the freezer overnight. Sunday morning, I took them out of the freezer and emptied the sweet potato cubes into Ziploc freezer bags for later consumption.

Sunday afternoon Madelyn told me that she sure would like some sweet potato’s (in her silent voice) so I took one sweet potato cube out of the freezer bag, microwaved it for about 20 seconds then fed her the YUMMY sweet potato’s. She loved them!  I was so excited that she was eating something that I made.  Besides breastmilk, I thought she would be lucky to ingest anything that I make from scratch.  🙂

Where to buy: Fresh Baby

Gigantikes

Announcements & Stationary, Fun stuff for parents, Holiday, Store Reviews, , ,

I can’t believe how cute this idea is. It’s not very often that I run into brand new ideas or products that I haven’t seen before, but this is one of them.

Gigantikes will print your favorite photograph in a huge scale on or next to things like the statue of liberty, the white house, or up high in the mountains.. whoever is in the photograph is much larger than those silly little mountains.

Scenes include: The Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, The White House, The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Houses of Parliament in  London, The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, The Leaning Tower of Pisa in  Italy, The Capital Building in San Francisco, and the Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

The process is simple. First you join Gigantikes, free. Then you upload your favorite photographs. There is a photo upload guide with tips to help you choose the best photographs for your Gigantikes products. After you upload photographs, they are stored in your "upload gallery". Next, you choose what product you want your photograph printed on. Products include greeting cards, a mouse pad, t-shirt, post cards, note cards, and more. After you choose a product, you are able to choose a scene that you want printed on the product and then you choose which photograph you want to use from your upload gallery. You can pick up to 3 photograph choices per product you want to purchase and they will choose the photograph that they think will work best with the scene you choose. After you choose your photograph and scene you can enter text to be displayed on your merchandise.

It’s fast and easy! The process is very easy and quick. It took me no longer than 5 minutes to upload my photograph, choose a product and a scene and then enter my text.

Gigantikes are a great holiday greeting card idea. You can also order simple photographs for albums which is a great gift to give grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends.

Where to buy: Gigantikes.com  

Personalized Holiday Ornament

Age 0-1 year, Age 1-3, Age 3-5, Age 5-7, Age 7-10, Ages 10-13, Baby & Kids Clothing, Fun stuff for parents, Personalized, ,

I love all things personalized. I think having personalized things really helps boost kids confidence. Growing Up With Style  has a great selection of personalized things for your baby including this beautiful Holiday Ornament.

Choose from over one dozen colors, personalize your ornament with up to 15 letters and an embellishment!

Stay tuned for my review of their personalized baby spoon.

Where to buy: Growing Up With Style

‘The Mommy Insider’ readers get $5 off a spoon or ornament purchase over $25!

Baby Legs

Age 0-1 year, Age 1-3, Age 3-5, Age 5-7, Age 7-10, Fun stuff for parents,

These are a baby and mom must have!  There are so many uses for these for babies, kids and parents that I can honestly say that I recommend that every parent get at least one pair for everyone in the family… and I’m not getting paid to say that!

POTTY TRAINING: BabyLegs were invented by a mom who wanted a way to keep her daughter’s legs warm, without having to wear pants, while was going through the ever trying potty training period. We all know that while  potty training, it can be quite a hassle to pull pants down, then up, then down, then up, then they get peed on sometime during all of that pulling up and down, right?  That’s my experience anyway. Putting BabyLegs on your potty training toddler solves that problem. Then she doesn’t have any pants to pull down, just a pull up! How exciting!!

DIAPER CHANGING: It has been really cold here lately and I feel terrible if I have unzip or unbutton her long onesie to change her diaper so I have been using BabyLegs and I love them. They really do make life a little easier!

JUST TO LOOK SUPER COOL: Sebastian, my 7 year old, loves to wear his flame BabyLegs (on his arms) to school. The kids love them! I wish I could order a pair for all the kids in his class.

KEEP WARM: Besides wearing his flame BabyLegs to school, Sebastian also wears them to bed. He has 2 pairs, so he wears one pair on his arms and the other on his legs. Yes, I keep the house freezing in the cold months. I have a problem paying $600 for a heating bill! BabyLegs have saved our day!  I actually put a pair of BabyLegs on my arms the other day and found that they fit very well and kept me warm too! Now I can lower the thermostat even more!   Ha Ha!

Where to buy: BabyLegs